I try to be mindful as I drive, let thoughts come and go as they please, but I’m not always successful. So tears tend to hit while I’m driving. When I am alone with my thoughts the reality of what is ahead grabs me and yanks until the knot pulls so tight it can never be undone. And that reality is the fact that this is my new normal. One moment walking happily along feeling like all is on the right track, the next being smacked in the face with the fact that things are very, very not okay. Suicide, overdose, death from anorexia—these all are not unreasonable ends to our story.

But so is recovery.

Recovery is not an unreasonable end to our story.

And that is my new normal. The fact that one is just as likely as the other. Or if not just as likely, they are all as much out of my control.

So, I really try to hold onto the hope of recovery, especially in the midst of relapse. But I am not sure that there is anything I can do to influence the outcome. I used to think there was, but I’m beginning to think that there is nothing I can do to make it better, the only real influence I have is to make it worse.

And that, more than anything, terrifies me. How am I making it worse? How am I coddling? How am I enabling? How am I helicoptering?

What is the line between any of those and compassion when faced with your child in agony?

My child, a heartbreakingly depressed young man trying to hold on. And trying to move forward.

Yesterday I came home from one of these driving episodes crying. Distraught over this relapse, this new normal of ours. I collapsed on my husband’s chest and sobbed, “I can’t do this.”

He looked at me and said “Yes. You can.”

My initial response was a snort acknowledging the cold comfort of the truth. Then I let my thoughts wander for a minute and remembered a recent phone call with a friend.

Of course, we can do this, we are already doing it, she reminded me. And we have been doing it for some time now.

This is our new normal. This working and fighting for recovery. For wellness. For peace.

And she is right. We are doing this. We have been doing this for almost 4 years. And we can keep on doing this.

I can do this with my friends who are in the same boat (or at least a similar one) with me. I can do this with my friends who have been there all along. I can do this with my new friends who have come my way because of this journey. I can do this with my husband of over 25 years. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t on the same page. Sometimes just reading the same book is enough.

I looked at my husband again and said, “I don’t want to do this.” And this is true as well. I don’t want this to be my reality. I want a different normal back. Of course, this is where the friction lies. This is where I get caught up over and over again. This is what saps my energy.

Instead of fighting for recovery I am fighting against what is.

Intellectually, I know this is senseless, but my emotions won’t be won over by petty things like facts.

So, I go back to my DBT workbook again. I review, redo, reevaluate the handouts on radical acceptance, and say to myself, “our son has a serious mental health disorder that could lead to his death.”

Take a breath. Figure out what to do with that.

And I remind myself again that this acceptance doesn’t mean I am okay with it. Doesn’t mean I am happy about it. It just means that this is what my life is at the moment. This is part of what my life is. This is the reality that I have to work with.

It doesn’t mean anything, it is just my current reality. So, I start again. I start again reviewing my skills, my supports. I start again practicing skills that build my resilience. I start again practicing skills to take care of myself, to keep myself well. I start again learning boundaries, and emotional regulation, and effectiveness. I start again researching ways forward that we haven’t thought of before.

I start again.

And again.

And again.

I can do this. I am doing this. I will continue to do this. As messy and inelegant and as hard as it is.

I can do it because my child is worth the fight. Because my family is worth the fight. Because I am fightworthy, even when I can’t do this.

So the boy turned 18 and the earth didn’t end. Or shake. Or change at all really. It just went on spinning, taking several more turns around the sun, and the son seemed to take it all in stride.

A few weeks later he graduated.

It seems a milestone has been reached. I’ve technically lived up to my parental responsibilities. Although practically, I’m fairly certain you are never done as a mother.

the son took it all in stride

I think he may have been expecting something more definitive. Myself, I was just sort of relieved.

So he is an adult now. But there wasn’t some magical switch thrown that will allow him to make “adult” decisions. It didn’t come with an extra tool box filled with “adult” tools. He still has what he had, still is what he was the day before, and yet he is different.

The perspective is different.

The expectations are different; the social contract has totally changed.

He has rights that he can exercise if he chooses. He has responsibilities that he must take on now, and some he can let slide until he is in college. The Selective Service reminded him of one of these with a letter that arrived on his birthday. The county registrar of voters reminded him of another when his first official election ballot arrived in the mail.

I see him picking up those responsibilities, and more, in fits and starts. I’m hoping that he takes them a little more seriously than he takes his responsibility to clean is room.

Currently, it appears that he does.

When he was signing the consent forms at a post birthday doctor appointment, I could see him come to the realization that he is now in control of his health decisions and his information. He had a detailed discussion with the doctor about what would be disclosed to me if he chose to sign the consent and what would be the practical implications if he didn’t.

He joked about sending me out of the room.

He really meant it though.

funny, they don’t look like adults

I’m glad he resisted. He is an adult, but we are still on this journey together.

He has a new lens for viewing his decisions, and I can see it is empowering to him. It’s exciting to see him finish one journey and prepare for another with this new view, and watch him adjust to what he expected and what actually is. I can also see the Pandora’s box aspect of it, but that is something that I gave up thinking about a while ago.

We have never tried to protect him from the real world and real world consequences, figuring that learning from them is the easiest way to go about learning to adult. Although, we have tried to incorporate mercy into the process as well.

His journey has been more fraught with danger and more torturous than we would have ever wished for. But he has risen to the occasion that no child should have to (and yet so many must) with more resilience and fortitude than I could have imagined.

My sister is in the same temporal place with her son, but she told me she has been crying lately. I understand that, but I’m not there. It is an amazing thing about trauma, it drags you into reality—ready or not. It challenges ingrained behaviors and pushes you to see other perspectives.

I guess I would have preferred the slow, dawning realization. Perhaps I would have found myself crying gently at the thought of his next adventure and tiptoeing cautiously between his 18th birthday and his graduation date.

Melancholy and excitement sharing the same space.

But that was not to be. I’ve already had to say good bye to so much during this recovery process, I feel like I have already done a large portion of the work of leaving the boy he was behind.

And at the same time I am able to hold on to that boy and realize, he is who he has always been. His diagnosis doesn’t change who he is, it doesn’t define him.

Like all of us, only this moment defines him. And in a second, it will be a different moment. His actions will demonstrate his heart, his inner light, his joy. As he has done in the past, he will make mistakes and, hopefully, he will not let them define him anymore than he allows the labels people try to attach to him.

And although his childhood has come to an end, I find myself hoping that he won’t totally lose the childhood perspective on life.

The possibility, hope and anticipation of his four-year-old self. I want that to stay with him, to be in a place where he can find it when he needs it most. I know he is going to need it.

A few years ago he asked me what I wanted him to be when he grew up. “I want you to be happy” I replied. “I may have some ideas about what will make you happy, but in the end, you don’t have to do them, you just have to find your own way to happy.”

I probably could have given more specific hopes and goals but I couldn’t have given more honest ones. I truly don’t care what he does with his life as long as he finds fulfillment and meaning. As long as he creates joy and lives happy. Accepting that sometimes you have to slog through the hard to just even taste the good. As long as he makes his journey count.

Although I know those are all subjective and judgy, I’m pretty sure I will know

taking in the moment

them when I see them.

He has the advantage (or perhaps disadvantage) of knowing that life is not always easy, things are not always fair, sometimes you get dealt a bad hand, and you just have to go with it and make the best of it. He is farther along the road to happiness than many adults I know just having that simple building block.

My aspirations for him seem to be crystalizing. Not so much because of his birthday, but because of the journey he has selected. And because I have let go of what I wanted or thought I wanted. I have followed his lead and am just taking in the moment.